


With New Eyes

by SnubbingApollo



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adoribull - Freeform, Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-29 01:25:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3877087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnubbingApollo/pseuds/SnubbingApollo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Iron Bull is not accustomed to uncertainty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With New Eyes

The Iron Bull is not accustomed to uncertainty. When he was still with the Qun decisions were made for him. He didn’t question or hesitate, he followed orders, did what he was told. And when he felt himself doubting, when he looked around at the rubble surrounding him in Seheron and found himself wondering what the point was, when his purpose and the truth of the world around him became unclear, well he went and he got fixed didn’t he? He turned himself in and got things flipped rightside up again.

But he’s Tal-Vashoth now and he doesn’t regret the decisions that led him here. He’d let every dreadnought in the navy burn if it meant keeping his boys alive. His priorities are all flipped backwards. His people would say he was sick, that he’d lost sight of the big picture, but The Bull feels like he’s seeing for the first time. He watches as the Chargers drink and sing in the tavern and can’t imagine a world where their voices are silent. There was a time, he knows, when, while they were his friends and he cared for them, he would still have viewed them all as expendable in the right circumstances. The thought makes him sick. It makes him want to pull Krem and Dalish and as many of them as he could hold at once into his arms until he could be sure nothing could hurt them. Until he knew that they knew he didn’t think that way anymore. That he would protect them now.

He’s got all these feelings swimming around in his head and he doesn’t know what to do with them. He’s putting the well being of individuals over that of the whole. That’s destructive and backwards. If individuals die the whole goes on. If the whole dies so do all the individuals that belong to it. But the Inquisition doesn’t think like that. They look out for each other, take care of each other and they thrive in spite of that. He’s seen the Inquisitor put entire missions in jeopardy to save one of the party who’d gotten lost or been injured and it doesn’t seem like foolishness. In the Qun those who fall behind, are left behind. They’re mourned, of course, and missed but the good of the group always comes first. It makes him warm to know that here he has people who’d risk everything for his safety.

And then there’s Dorian. Bull had always had a rule in the Qun that he didn’t sleep with Bas or Viddathari. They had a tendency to get too attached, to expect things he couldn’t return and that got messy. He couldn’t recall now when that rule started to get stretched and then broken but he imagines it must have been as gradual as every other way he broke from the Qun. The changes are obvious but there’s no clear point at which any of them occurred.

He’d been attracted to Dorian from the first time he saw him. The Vint is a good looking guy, and Bull had always had a thing for the spitfires. It’s not the attraction he has a problem with. Sex is normal and healthy. This… attachment he’s feeling is something else entirely. He thinks about Dorian constantly, can’t get him out of his head. Even things which have no logical connection to the mage bring him to The Bull’s mind. He sees the sun is out and wonders if Dorian’s enjoying the warmth. He hears a funny joke and makes a mental note to tell it to Dorian later. He hears about a cold making its way through the ranks and hopes Dorian doesn’t catch it.

He’s not sure why he told Dorian about the dragon’s teeth. It’s an old ritual. No one really does it anymore, in fact it’s slightly frowned upon. Nothing that would get you in trouble per se but it was likely to set the teeth of the people around you on edge. Make them question your priorities. He definitely never thought Dorian would actually do it.

The damn Vint had looked so proud of himself too when he’d presented them. He’d held one out to the Bull and the qunari had just stared at it, open mouthed like a clod. The smile on his face had faltered and his hand had fallen a few inches before The Bull had shaken himself out of his shock and taken it with a smile.

“Thank you, Kadan,” he’d said softly as he put it around his neck. That had been different too. Not the word itself, he’d been calling Dorian Kadan for weeks, but the emotion behind it had changed. The sex that night had felt different as well and when Dorian turned after, curled up in his arms and rested his head on The Bull’s chest it felt heavier. More meaningful.

The Bull sighs heavily and leans back in his chair. He’s been stroking the dragon tooth as he thinks and that’s just another thing to add to his calculations. He’s not stupid, he knows what this is. He might not be very familiar with it or how it’s supposed to go but he knows what it is. He’s cared for people before of course, he’s had friends, but nothing like this. He doesn’t know what to do with this.

“Do my eyes deceive me?” a warm voice drawls from the doorway. His training doesn’t really let him react outwardly to surprises like that but he jumps pretty spectacularly on the _inside_. He hadn’t heard the door at all. “Are you _brooding_?” A smile comes to The Bull’s face as he turns to see Dorian standing in the entrance to his room.

“Must have picked it up from you,” he says. Dorian smiles back at him and crosses the distance between them to straddle The Bull where he sits in his chair and press their mouths together in a kiss. Bull returns it firmly, enjoying the way Dorian hums in approval when he nibbles on his lower lip.

“What’s got you thinking so deeply?” Dorian whispers against his lips. He pulls away slightly leaning back into the qunari’s arms, trusting The Bull to support his weight. The Iron Bull looks at the man in front of him and realizes he can’t imagine a day in which he doesn’t have this, where Dorian doesn’t kiss him like that and lean into his hold so trustingly, and he takes all his brooding and his indecision and gives it a firm and heartfelt middle finger. He pulls Dorian closer pressing his forehead to the mage’s.

“I love you, Kadan,” he says quietly. Dorian gives him a breezy smirk.

“Well, of course you do. How could you not?” he says carelessly. The Bull growls.

“I am being serious, Venak Hol.”

“I know,” Dorian says losing his affectation and rubbing the back of The Bull’s neck tensely. “I love you too, Amatus.”

“I have no idea how this is supposed to work.”

“And you think I do?” Dorian asks with a pointedly arched eyebrow. The mage kisses him again and The Bull leans into it with the urgency of a man clinging to the only solid ground available to him.

“We’ll figure it out together, hm?” Dorian continues when they finally break the kiss. The Bull nods before burying one of his hands in Dorian’s hair and his face in the human’s neck, tilting his head carefully, ever mindful of his horns. He breathes in his mage’s scent and sighs contentedly.

“I’ll have to speak to Josephine,” Dorian says. “How do you feel about June?”

“June?” The Bull mumbles confusedly into Dorian’s skin.

“For the wedding,” Dorian clarifies. “It’ll have to be sometime in the summer, of course, I’m insisting on that. I’ll not be cold on my wedding day.” The Bull jerks back as quickly as he can without horn related tragedy and stares at Dorian.

“I- uh…,” is all he gets out before Dorian cracks and starts laughing.

“You’re _face_ ,” the mage gasps out between cackles.

“Oh you- that was-,” the Bull stutters out incredulously. “C’mere you, you’re gonna pay for that.” He tackles Dorian to the floor and the other man manages a yelp between guffaws of laughter.

Yeah, everything’s just fine.


End file.
